Difficulty Racking Slide in new CT380

Yesterday I was able to pick up a near-new CT380 here locally. I sold my CW380 because the grip was just too small - but it was 100% reliable thru around 70 rounds. I really like my CM9 - the slide is tough to rack but it's big enough to get a good grip on it.

I also have a SIG P230SL - which is a blowback .380 as I'm sure everyone here knows. The slide is a little tough to rack on it but an order of magnitude (or two!) easier than the CT380. So - here is the Kahr-newbie question: I'm thinking about ordering a spare inner recoil spring from Kahr - then clipping about 1/4 or 1/3 off of the original inner recoil spring. Hopefully that might reduce the gi-normous slide racking effort?

I'm a little bit savvy about semi-autos so I understand this might cause reliability issues and maybe some frame battering. But, this is a pistol that I'm only going to put a box or two through it - then put it into my carry rotation. What does Kahr Talk think? Do I have rocks for brains? It'll be easy to reverse by swapping the inner spring back to the original.

For the life of me - and, again, I'm a Kahr newbie, I cannot understand why the CT380 is so tightly sprung - it's not a blowback... :(

I've played around trying different springs in my P380 and I've found there's fine balance between the force of the recoil springs and that of the striker spring.

The two areas where I saw this were:
1. During the last bit of travel, just before the slide enters battery, the striker engages the cocking cam which starts compression of the striker spring. This works against the recoil springs. The recoil springs need to be strong enough to move the mass of slide and and to overcome the initial compression of the striker spring.
2. Once in battery, the recoil springs need to be strong enough to hold the slide forward as compression is increased on the striker spring during trigger stroke. If the recoil springs are not strong enough (or the striker spring too strong), the pistol will come out of battery as the trigger is pulled.

I decided to just stick with the OEM set up.

Regards,
Greg

Going into the carry rotation? Stick with stock....

Had the same problem when my CT380 was new, but it's loosening up a bit after some use. I'd stick with the original spring as is and just work it.

Thank you, Gents, for your input! I have never thought about the details of how the Kahr striker system (or any other striker-fired handgun) works. It makes perfect sense, in hindsight, that the recoil springs and striker mechanism and spring work against each other - Doh on my part :2rolleyes: But, to my credit, that's why I asked about this here rather than forging ahead with a pretty flawed idea. I'm going to leave the springs alone - and let it sit for a couple of days as both of my hands feel weak from mucking around with it so much the past two days. I do wish Vickers or someone would make/sell a slide racker for the Kahr's ...

When the springs are new or I'm just tired, I lock the slide back and use the slide release to load the round. If you put in an empty mag and just pull the slide back it will lock open by itself. Then load the mag, press the slide release and its loaded. Drop the mag and top it off if you want. If you carry with a round chambered, theoretically you'd never have to rack the slide. but its a good idea to be able to rack the slide just in case.

The steps you take when tired, is the technique recommended in the manual. Lock the slide back, put in the loaded mag, hit the slide release.

Also I noticed that my cm9 is dramatically easier to rack after a mere 150 rounds and some dry practice. I would give her some time to loosen up a bit.

I got rid of my CW380 and bought a CM9. After over 700 rds I still could not rack the CW without a fair degree of difficulty. I am a large man, fairly strong and have shot a variety of firearms. I know the proper techniques for racking a semi auto pistol. To continue to own and carry the CW 380....no, let me say.... to carry THE ONE I HAD was not in my best interest. How can anyone be justified to carry a firearm that can not manually be racked? Sure using the slide stop for loading solves that problem, but it certainly does not address the problem of what to do in case of a FTF or FTE and you then must manually rack to clear you weapon. That makes you firearm potentially a deadly liability, not an life saving asset.